Dr Rand Waltzman in the news….

“Every asshole on the face of the planet has complete and open and unrestricted access to our public social media data – everybody except the United States government.”

That’s the verdict of senior information scientist at the RAND Corporation, Dr Rand Waltzman, speaking about the state of ‘cognitive security’ in the world, amid all the controversy on ‘fake news’, machines weaponised to spread disinformation, and the resulting flak that has deeply permeated media, politics and society.

His language was used to make a point but the overall gist is that we pay a price for our very cautious approach to transparency on the internet. It’s a price we pay in the form of less cognitive security.